"Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” the president said in a Facebook address.

The plan calls for the elimination of meaningless standardized tests and a cap on the amount of time students spend taking them. According to a study from the Council of the Great City Schools, the average eighth grader spends 2.34% of their class time (about 4.2 days) taking standardized tests. The Obama plan would set a maximum at 2%.

"When I look back on the great teachers who shaped my life, what I remember isn't the way they prepared me to take a standardized test,” he said. “What I remember is the way they taught me to believe in myself, to be curious about the world."